Wear resistance properties of tungsten carbide/stainless steel composite materials prepared by pulsed current sintering

Austenitic stainless steel has been used as a corrosion resistance material in tough corrosive circumstance. However, austenitic stainless steel has poor wear resistance property due to its low hardness. Tungsten Carbide alloys (WC) are widely used as tooling materials, because of their high hardness and excellent wear resistance property. In this investigation, we apply powder composite process to obtain hard layer of Stainless steel. The composite material was fabricated from planetary ball milled WC powder and SUS316L stainless steel powder and sintered by Pulse Current Sintering (PCS) method. We also added TiC powder as a hard particle in WC layer. Evaluations of wear properties were performed by pin-on-disk wear testing machine, and a remarkable improvement in wear resistance property was obtained. The weight loss rate of the composite was 1/10 of SUS316L. In addition, it was found that TiC hard particle addition has a positive effect on the wear resistance property. EPMA investigation showed good dispersion of WC hard phase and TiC hard particle with SUS316L matrix.